This invention generally relates to a color creation means and more particularly concerns a multicolor typewriter ribbon system which allows the rapid and convenient selection of different colored ribbon portions during typing.
Despite the increasing presence of color in almost all other areas of communications, e.g., advertising, photography, printed materials and television, the typewritten message has remained monochromatic. Although many outstanding advances have been made in recent times, which increase the monochromatic performance of tyepwriters, e.g., speed, dependability, type face selection and computer tape control (to mention a few), the color creation capability of tyepwriters has remained much as it was nearly a century ago.
Selection of a specific longitudinal portion of ribbon in the past has been inconvenient, if not difficult, according to known typewriter ribbon advancing arrangements. Specific means have not been provided for overriding the normal ribbon indexing mechanism to facilitate ribbon portion selection. Moreover, typewriter ribbons in the past have, to a large extent, been of a single color, e.g., black. Where more than one color was provided, they were arranged parallel to each other along the length of the ribbon. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 385,391, 855,559, 1,392,458, 2,759,580 and RE 27,770. These arrangements are limited by the special mechanisms required for moving the ribbon, carriage and type faces relative to each other. Thus, except for the two parallel machines, e.g., of the black-red variety, few machines having parallel colors are known to be in use. Even use of the former appears, in many cases, to be limited to accountants and bookkeepers who have need for red ink. As a result, color creation in typewritten documents has been extremely limited.